Will My Love Say Yes? College Kids Ask This Website

By

Hannah Seligson

Updated July 16, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Mallory Johnson, 22, a senior at The College of William & Mary, saw a cute boy on campus, but she didn't prepare a good opening line and go introduce herself. Instead she logged onto GoodCrush.com, a college dating website and posted a message that said: "I see you on campus at a meeting every week, and I think you're a law student. Maybe I'll get the courage to talk to you someday." As luck would have it, the young man that Ms. Johnson had been eyeing, who was indeed a law student, wrote back to her through GoodCrush's anonymous (no names, no photos) messaging system. They exchanged notes for a few days and then decided to take the plunge and meet in person. They have been dating for the past four months.

ENLARGE

A generation lacking in romantic courage.
Getty Images

It's not exactly spontaneous or romantic. It makes one long for John Cusack asking out the most popular girl in the class in "Say Anything."

But the '80s are over. "People in college need the electronic middleman," says Ms. Johnson. "I would never have had the courage to just go up and talk to him." After the site launched at William & Mary in February, Ms. Johnson says she saw an increase in the number of people going on dates. "GoodCrush helped foster other parts of the romantic culture," she says.

GoodCrush is a cross between Match.com and Facebook (in its early days when users needed a university linked email address to join). There are two main features on the site: the CrushFinder and Missed Connections. CrushFinder allows users to enter up to five "crushes" at a time, and if there is a match, both people are notified in a congratulatory email. Missed Connections is a message board where college students write posts like Ms. Johnson's. (Craigslist has had a similar feature for years now.)

The site is the brainchild of 23-year-old Josh Weinstein who started it in 2007 during his sophomore year at Princeton. Within 24 hours of launching GoodCrush, 30% of the school's study body had signed up. Today, the site, which went live on 20 college campuses in February, has 14,000 users and requests from students at over 80 other colleges. It's also attracted some venture capital, though Mr. Weinstein won't disclose how much.

Students like the double-blind approach of the site—identities are only revealed if both people indicate they have a "crush" on the other person. "I'm definitely not the most shy guy, but I need some help making that initial leap and asking someone out," says Mr. Weinstein. And he's not alone.

"My experience has been that people just aren't that forward," says Jennifer Werbitsky, 18, a sophomore at Cornell. GoodCrush allays those age-old fears about rejection. Matthew Straus, 20, a junior at Duke, says he's heard the name of the site used as a verb on campus. "My guy friends say maybe I'll 'GoodCrush' her before I try and get with her or ask her out.'

But what are the drawbacks of cultivating a risk-free dating culture, where college students can get email verification that it's safe to ask the other person out? Won't their parents and grandparents accuse them of being a bunch of chickens?

Kathleen Bogle, a sociologist at La Salle University in Philadelphia and author of "Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus," says GoodCrush actually entails taking a greater degree of risk than college students normally do in their dating lives. "They can't hide behind beer goggles, or use alcohol as an excuse," she says. "It's a very deliberate move to go on a website and voice that they are interested in someone." The bar, in other words, is set pretty low.

Mr. Weinstein believes that in a culture where texting has replaced talking and no-strings-attached sexual encounters are common, GoodCrush has the potential to facilitate more traditional dating interactions. However, Ms. Bogle did suggest that Mr. Weinstein set up a "next Step" feature where users could make plans for a date after they've been notified of a match. Lest the site just become another pathway to one-night stands.

Ms. Seligson is the author of "A Little Bit Married: How to Know When It's Time to Walk Down the Aisle or Out the Door" (De Capo).

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